Why Are Policies And Procedures Important In A Workplace | Organizational Policies

You can have a board. Gates will close twenty minutes before departure. Counters will be closed 45 minutes, and then you can keep begging. Keep on calling. Final call for Ra… And then one person will come and all over the airport, “Chennai passenger?”. If it’s Koyambedu Bus Stand, I can understand. In airport, “Chennai, Chennai passenger! Ra, Ra…”, until you beg, he will be sitting. Twice take off the flight without that person, from next day onwards, he leaves on time. Creating a system and not following the system doesn’t create any transformation!

So you can create all religious doctrine. You can call yourself a Jain. Eventually, you’re not a Jain unless you start living by the doctrines that you have taken. So some system to monitor yourself, that I’m not just calling myself a Jain, am I living by it, some system of monitoring is required. In an organization, we call it policies. Anything that we find is going to be recurring. People asking for salary advances, people asking for coming late, people asking for flexi-hours. People asking for maternity leave. People asking for long leave. People asking for, if they can do, if they can concentrate 9-to-5 on this job, and do also a part-time business.

Can relatives work in the same organization? These are all going to be recurring phenomena. So you create certain policies, and against these policies, you monitor the decisions that you have to make. Now if you have policies, if you don’t have policies, nothing can be done. But if you have policies, but you don’t enforce these policies. Still, nothing can be done. Any one of you have built an organization, and chances are, even today, for every decision, people run into your cabin only and ask, “What should we do?”, that’s because either policies are not in place or policies are not being enforced.

Now, you create policies, not for any other reason. Today, you’re taking certain decisions and your business is this size. Ten years from now, your business will be this size, and you have to be focusing on something else. If you’ve developed policies as you develop the organization, and created hierarchical leadership, against these policies, anybody in the hierarchy of the organization will be able to make those decisions. If you’ve not evolved these policies, then nobody makes a decision. If there is politics in an organization, what is politics in an organization? People choose their jobs. People choose their bosses.

People play it on your emotion. If there is this sentence in an organization, which means, there is either no policies, or there is no enforcing this policies in organization. One sentence only in an organization, is enough to reflect this. “Today don’t ask him, he is not in a good mood.” Which means they’re basically saying, on another day, when you are emotionally vulnerable, they can get an “Yes” out of you. Which means your decision is mood-based, and it is not policy-based! If somebody can get a no from you, and get an yes from the super boss, organization politics have already started.

Which means people feel, in a family business, if they ask you, you will say a no. But if they go and talk to Papa, you will get an “Yes”, organisational politics have already begun. Which means Papa makes his own decision based on his moods. You make your own decision. Brother makes his own decision. There is no policy in this organization! Or if there are policies, there is no enforcement of these policies in an organization. So at a national level, we call it constitution. Religion, we call it as doctrines. Organization, we call it as policies. All these things fall under the same category. Certain aspects of life are going to be recursive, repetitive, regular.

In life, and everytime, again, I don’t have to use my intelligence because, see, if there is a system which can take care of all the logical decisions that can be made, then your intelligence is free for all the creative endeavors. All the creative endeavors, if your intelligence is going to be wasted, even in taking day-to-day decisions all the time, because there is no policies there, then your intelligence is going to be so tired, it can never involve itself in innovation, imagination, creativity, never!

And this is what we lose out on! It is not important you know the Upanishads. It’s not important you remember all the characters in Mahabharat. It’s not important that you are a biblical scholar. What is important is, from all the things that know in Bible, you have taken ten principles and kept it, and you consistently keep monitoring yourself on these ten principles, am I living by that or not? And in this one monitoring, that you consistently keep doing, in an individual, we call it values. For a nation, it’s a constitution. For a religion, it’s a doctrine. For an organization, it is a policy.

If I come late, will I be allowed for a Mahatria’s program? It really doesn’t make a difference. If you had already told anybody from my organization, “I will be missing one session, but that’s okay for me, I want to do TAT.”, trust me, to the last syllable. They would have said, “Don’t do the program.”. They would have told you, “Don’t do the program, then you don’t do this program.”. “No, no. It’s okay for me. I will pay the fees. I don’t mind missing one session, but I just want it. For me, even six sessions is again, so I want to do.” If you had told, if you have lied, if you had hidden it, that’s a different thing.

But if you have said, I don’t think anybody from this organization would have told you, “Oh, that’s okay. Give me the cheque.”. Integrity compromise will not be tolerated. Doesn’t matter what the circumstances is, and the advantage is, the last man in the organization can also make a decision because there are policies to guide decision-making. For everything, people don’t have to run back into your room. See, if all the time you’re being interrupted for day-to-day decisions, when will you focus with continuity on the larger picture?

So statutory obligations are there. Create an audit council, have an internal auditor, have a company secretary to act as a consultant. Create a legal adviser, let somebody go through whatever transactions that are happening in your business on a regular basis, and find out whether statutory obligations are met or not. From labor, because India has created as many policies as possible, and why should you be learning all these things? What did we learn? If what can be done by others, can be done by others, then what you alone can do, you can keep doing. Hire a labor consultant, pay him three thousand, five thousand rupees.

Let him come every month and check whether there is adherence to all these statutory obligations or not! Get a company secretary, let him keep checking whether according to the register of companies, you are following all this or not. Your mind is free.What I’m saying is, it’s not important we create a constitution. We need a system to enforce that constitution. It is not enough, you call yourself a religious person. Somewhere, there must be an adherence to some of those doctrines that you agree upon. It is not enough that you have organization. First, you need policies.

Anything that is recursive in nature, should come under a policy, so that policies can make this decision. Which means anybody in the hierarchy of the organization, through the policy should be able to execute a decision, exceptions will come to you. Now everything is an exception. Sometimes sitting alone in your cabin, with nobody in front of you, no intrusion and just closing your eyes and thinking, you will be stunned with the ideas which you can get. And that sort of a privacy of time is possible, only if you have built an organization which has policies, and you have a system of enforcing those policies.